Rating: 
Summary: Montaigne is the mind of Shakespeare
Review: A classic of literature. There are standards in art and literature and this is one of them. Reading Montaigne is having a mirror held to your mind.
Buy this work even if it means dumping the rest of your cart!
Rating:
Summary: Imperative reading for human beings
Review: At critical junctures of my life I have found Montaigne to be the best source of understanding of what it is to be a civilized human being. The essays illuminate the self and our relationship to society. This book more than any other I know enables the reader to trace our relationship to issues that concern us today: freedom, appropriate behavior, individuals vs institutions, health, nature. You name it, MM deals with it. Buy this book.
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Summary: Stoeln Ideas
Review: I completely agree with "Beranger" What a load ideas Montaigne has stolen from me...or did I used to be Montaigne in my past life? I can't believe how true every word of it
Rating:
Summary: inappropriate and embarrassing
Review: It is innappropriate and embarrassing to reduce Montaigne to a "rating," but I must naturally give him the highest possible. Harold Bloom has said that what Dante left unexplored about human nature, Shakespeare plumbed. I would dare to include Montaigne in that select group also. If stranded on an island with only the Comedy, Shakespeare's plays, and Montaigne's essays, one would still have the entire world available. But this book does not need my praises anymore than the sun does to go on shining.I will say a word about the translation. M. A. Screech gives the best available English translation of all the essays in a single volume, a blessing for we unfortunate ones who cannot meet this genius in his own tongue. Screech is engaging and humorous, qualities that the French doubtless posesses, and one gets the sense that a good portion of Montaigne survives the journey into English. Penguin Classics delivers again.
Rating:
Summary: inappropriate and embarrassing
Review: It is innappropriate and embarrassing to reduce Montaigne to a "rating," but I must naturally give him the highest possible. Harold Bloom has said that what Dante left unexplored about human nature, Shakespeare plumbed. I would dare to include Montaigne in that select group also. If stranded on an island with only the Comedy, Shakespeare's plays, and Montaigne's essays, one would still have the entire world available. But this book does not need my praises anymore than the sun does to go on shining. I will say a word about the translation. M. A. Screech gives the best available English translation of all the essays in a single volume, a blessing for we unfortunate ones who cannot meet this genius in his own tongue. Screech is engaging and humorous, qualities that the French doubtless posesses, and one gets the sense that a good portion of Montaigne survives the journey into English. Penguin Classics delivers again.
Rating:
Summary: Montaigne's Reasonable Use of Reason.
Review: MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE - THE COMPLETE ESSAYS. Translated and Edited with an Introduction and Notes by M. A. Screech. lviv + 1284 pp. (Penguin Classics). London : Penguin Books, 1993 and Reissued. ISBN 0-14-044604-4 (pbk.) Those who discover Montaigne should count themselves very lucky. There are so many authors competing for our attention today, so many brilliant and less than brillliant men and women both contemporary and of the past, so many poets, novelists, philosophers, thinkers of every stripe, that Montaigne's voice can easily get lost in the general racket, like the voice of a single cricket on a noisy summer's night. But Montaigne's voice is well worth singling out for special attention, like that one cricket whose song is especially musical, because there has never been anyone quite like him, nor anyone who has produced such a wealth of sensible observations on life and everything that goes to make it up. We love Montaigne for his humanity, his wisdom, his clear insight into human nature, his tolerance of our weaknesses and failings, his love and compassion for all creatures whether man, animal, or plant, his calm, gentle and amiable voice, his stately and dignified progress as he conducts us through the vast repository of his mind. But above all we love him for his plain good sense. Despite his distance in time, we can open these essays almost anywhere and immediately become engrossed. Some of what he says, particularly about our weaknesses and failings, may not be particularly welcome to some, though the open-minded will acknowledge its self-evident truth. Montaigne was not afraid to speak his mind, and as a man who was interested in almost everything, his observations range from the curious through to the truly profound. At one time we find him, for example, discussing the best sexual position for conception, at others such deep notions as that "in truth we are but nothing" (p.555); "there is a plague on man, the opinion that he knows something" (p.543); thought as the chief source of our woes (p.514); "in man curiosity is an innate evil" (p.555); "only a fool is bound to his body by fear of death" (p.553); nature needs little to be satisfied" (p.526); there is only change (p.xvii); our absolute need for converse with others (p.421); how "if a ray of God's light touched us even slightly, it would be everywhere apparent : not only our words but our deeds would bear its lustre and its brightness. Everything emanating from us would be seen shining with that noble light" (p.493); how man should "lay aside that imaginary kingship over other creatures which is attributed to us" (p.487); how reason is not a special unique gift of human beings, marking us off from the rest of Nature" (p489); of how "we owe justice to men," and "gentleness and kindness" to "beasts, which have life and feelings [and] even to trees and plants" (p.488). And so on through manifold topics, both weighty and light, his observations illustrated by stories contemporary and ancient, drawn not only from his incredibly wide learning, but also from his experience as man of the world. The examples I've cited seem to me pitifully inadequate as describing or even suggesting the breadth of his thought - just a few examples selected at random that happen to appeal to me. Montaigne is too big to capture in a few words. His mind was as capacious as his enormous book, and he had something to say about almost everything. His is not so much a book as a companion for life. Montaigne as that single special cricket singing away in the forest of learning along with thousands of others, is not only worth singling out because of his vast repertoire of songs, but even more because of the special way he sang them. What makes him so important and so valuable, especially to us today, is that he was characterized above all, not merely by reason, which is common enough, but by a REASONABLE, AND NOT EXCESSIVE, USE OF REASON. In other words, he knew that reason had its limits, that it was a tool limited in its applicability and useful only for certain purposes, and he had the good sense to know when we should stop. There is in Montaigne a sanity, a balance, an affability, and a modesty and tolerance that is found in no other European thinker, and that reminds one more of the Chinese sage. But instead of fastening on the truly civilized pattern established by Montaigne, Europe instead chose Descartes, Apostle of the Excessive Use of Reason, and with what results we know. The Cartesian ideology of Reason fueled and continues to fuel the relentless Juggernaut of Reason now underway that threatens to end up crushing everything beneath its wheels. Montaigne would have been appalled. He stood for something more human.
Rating:
Summary: Montaigne's Reasonable Use of Reason.
Review: MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE - THE COMPLETE ESSAYS. Translated and Edited with an Introduction and Notes by M. A. Screech. lviv + 1284 pp. (Penguin Classics). London : Penguin Books, 1993 and Reissued. ISBN 0-14-044604-4 (pbk.) Those who discover Montaigne should count themselves very lucky. There are so many authors competing for our attention today, so many brilliant and less than brillliant men and women both contemporary and of the past, so many poets, novelists, philosophers, thinkers of every stripe, that Montaigne's voice can easily get lost in the general racket, like the voice of a single cricket on a noisy summer's night. But Montaigne's voice is well worth singling out for special attention, like that one cricket whose song is especially musical, because there has never been anyone quite like him, nor anyone who has produced such a wealth of sensible observations on life and everything that goes to make it up. We love Montaigne for his humanity, his wisdom, his clear insight into human nature, his tolerance of our weaknesses and failings, his love and compassion for all creatures whether man, animal, or plant, his calm, gentle and amiable voice, his stately and dignified progress as he conducts us through the vast repository of his mind. But above all we love him for his plain good sense. Despite his distance in time, we can open these essays almost anywhere and immediately become engrossed. Some of what he says, particularly about our weaknesses and failings, may not be particularly welcome to some, though the open-minded will acknowledge its self-evident truth. Montaigne was not afraid to speak his mind, and as a man who was interested in almost everything, his observations range from the curious through to the truly profound. At one time we find him, for example, discussing the best sexual position for conception, at others such deep notions as that "in truth we are but nothing" (p.555); "there is a plague on man, the opinion that he knows something" (p.543); thought as the chief source of our woes (p.514); "in man curiosity is an innate evil" (p.555); "only a fool is bound to his body by fear of death" (p.553); nature needs little to be satisfied" (p.526); there is only change (p.xvii); our absolute need for converse with others (p.421); how "if a ray of God's light touched us even slightly, it would be everywhere apparent : not only our words but our deeds would bear its lustre and its brightness. Everything emanating from us would be seen shining with that noble light" (p.493); how man should "lay aside that imaginary kingship over other creatures which is attributed to us" (p.487); how reason is not a special unique gift of human beings, marking us off from the rest of Nature" (p489); of how "we owe justice to men," and "gentleness and kindness" to "beasts, which have life and feelings [and] even to trees and plants" (p.488). And so on through manifold topics, both weighty and light, his observations illustrated by stories contemporary and ancient, drawn not only from his incredibly wide learning, but also from his experience as man of the world. The examples I've cited seem to me pitifully inadequate as describing or even suggesting the breadth of his thought - just a few examples selected at random that happen to appeal to me. Montaigne is too big to capture in a few words. His mind was as capacious as his enormous book, and he had something to say about almost everything. His is not so much a book as a companion for life. Montaigne as that single special cricket singing away in the forest of learning along with thousands of others, is not only worth singling out because of his vast repertoire of songs, but even more because of the special way he sang them. What makes him so important and so valuable, especially to us today, is that he was characterized above all, not merely by reason, which is common enough, but by a REASONABLE, AND NOT EXCESSIVE, USE OF REASON. In other words, he knew that reason had its limits, that it was a tool limited in its applicability and useful only for certain purposes, and he had the good sense to know when we should stop. There is in Montaigne a sanity, a balance, an affability, and a modesty and tolerance that is found in no other European thinker, and that reminds one more of the Chinese sage. But instead of fastening on the truly civilized pattern established by Montaigne, Europe instead chose Descartes, Apostle of the Excessive Use of Reason, and with what results we know. The Cartesian ideology of Reason fueled and continues to fuel the relentless Juggernaut of Reason now underway that threatens to end up crushing everything beneath its wheels. Montaigne would have been appalled. He stood for something more human.
Rating:
Summary: A cultural turning point in the history of mankind
Review: Montaigne is a turning point in the cultural history of mankind. He makes an exploration of the self in a way no one had made before. His essais are adventures in mind in which he reveals himself and his thought with honesty and insight Montaigne is the first great secular skeptical mind. His humanity is continually revealed in these Essais most notably in his essay on Friendship. Montaigne teaches us that there are worlds inside as rich and varied as the worlds without .
Rating:
Summary: A Lifelong Companion
Review: Montaigne is that rarest of writers, entertaining but also enlightening. To read him alone is an education, and a companion to cheer you on even the darkest of days.
Rating:
Summary: A Lifelong Companion
Review: Montaigne is that rarest of writers, entertaining but also enlightening. To read him alone is an education, and a companion to cheer you on even the darkest of days.
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